Thursday, May 14, 2015

Weeds and Pests

I had weeds in my spinach.

Weeds in my carrots which are bigger than the carrots themselves.

Weeds in my parsley which is mostly self seeded fennel. Basically weeds all over the garden. I didn't finish but I certainly got a lot of the weeding done. The spinach had huge gapes all over. The worst was in one bed that the cutworms got to. Half the plants are missing. The carrots also had cutworm damage as did the turnips in the cabbage bed. I found a lot of cutworms. You can tell where they are because they take a leaf - or in the case of carrots, they take the whole plant - and cut it at the soil surface and drag it underground. You can see the top of the poor plant sticking up but half buried. Sadly I couldn't find all the ones where I found damage. Especially in the larger spinach beds and the chard.

Above is some cutworm damage too. The cutworms can't eat through the leaf stalks as they are too thick. So they will just go up the leaf and start eating it. Though in spots you can see that they tried to cut the leaf off and failed. Around those plants I'd just dig in the soil near the plant.

Bad cutworm! It had plenty of weeds to eat, but no it wanted my plants. I'll be out each morning looking for cutworm damage. I just hope next time I find it, I can find the cutworm. I couldn't for the last two carrots that bit the dust. Each day I miss one is another carrot that dies. Each day I find one is another cutworm that dies. If I win I get to eat. If the cutworm wins he gets to pupate and make more cutworms to annoy me again with the next generation.

Sometimes when you have your head down and focused on killing cutworms gardening seems rather futile. Especially when you can't find the little buggers and know they will kill more of your plants. But then you look up. Mostly things are growing well. Spring has sprung. A cool breeze is in the air and life is pretty good.

I so rarely take photos in this direction for some reason. From this you can see the steps to my kitchen door. I love having a garden that is right outside my kitchen. Even if it does have cutworms in it.

12 comments:

Bad bad cutworms. I hate them. They love my lettuce. I hate them. I think they migrate around the garden in search of lettuce. The only good cutworm is a squished cutworm. But yes, other than that, life is good. It's trying to rain today!

Gardening would be the perfect occupation if it weren't for weeds and pests! This time of year is tough because the vegetables are too small to be properly mulched! I love that you walk right out of your kitchen into your garden.

I had a few of my spinach plants knocked over by cutworms last year - it's quite disheartening to see that baby seedling that you have been nurturing, keeled over.

I just finished weeding the planted up beds yesterday - now on to the beds that need to be planted up this week. I actually enjoy weeding my veg beds - my perennial borders are quite the different story.

About Me

I've been gardening for almost three decades now, ever since my husband and I bought our first house. Every garden has been different. The first was small and the soil was almost pure sand. The second was larger and I had heavy clay. The third and current one which is just outside of Boston, is by far the largest even though the lot is by far the smallest. Since we bought the house new, we designed the landscaping ourselves, and the soil we added was fairly good. My challenge here is the location. We are so close to our neighbors that their houses can shade the garden.